David Ellis: The Last Alibi

At the end of the hearing, the judge takes the matter under advisement. We’ll find out what he thinks soon. The Bradens thank me more profusely than I deserve. The adrenaline from the court hearing begins its slow leak, my interest in being here along with it. Actually, it’s more like the balloon has burst.

I have to leave. I have to get out of here.

Then I hear a woman’s voice behind me. “Mr. Kolarich.”

I notice a change in both of the men, father and son alike, their eyes growing, their posture straightening.

I turn. It’s the court reporter. The prosecutor’s office likes to hire an independent court reporter for these suppression hearings, because when they lose-when their whole case goes in the dumpster because of an evidentiary ruling-they like to appeal the case right away, and the county’s court reporters aren’t the most reliable.

I quickly understand the reaction of the Braden men. The court reporter has cropped black hair with Cleopatra bangs and large, piercing eyes the color of teal or aqua. Her face is finely etched into a V, with a nicely proportioned figure, from what I can see in her blue suit.

Those are the vital statistics, but there is something more there, something haunting, something electric. Her very presence feels like a dare, a challenge. Like she understands me. I know you. I know what’s wrong with you.

She hands me her card. “That has my e-mail and cell on it,” she says. “I’ll have the transcript to you by the end of the week, is that soon enough?”

I look down at the name. Alexa Himmel.

“Okay, Alexa Himmel,” I say. Just saying her name makes me feel dirty.

Shauna

Tuesday, June 4

I slump into my chair and groan as I look over the files in front of me on my desk. My body is rubbery, fatigued. My brain is still fuzzy, buzzing from the comedown, even though I gave myself a long weekend to shake it out.

Last Friday, on the eve of a jury verdict, we settled our personal injury case, my client an industrial painter who got zapped by an electrical wire while working on a hydraulic lift underneath the train tracks. He survived, but suffered severe nerve damage to his right arm and can no longer hold a toothbrush, much less a sandblaster. We went to trial almost three weeks ago. The general contractor and electric utility blamed each other-the GC said the utility knew the work was going to be performed that day and was supposed to kill the power to those lines; the utility said the work went out of order and nobody told them my client, Joe Mariel, would be blasting by those electrical wires at that location on that day.

We gave it to the jury last Thursday morning. On Friday, while the jury was still deliberating, the general contractor and power company collectively coughed up $650,000 to end the suspense. My client Joe dipped me like a ballroom dancer with his good arm and planted a wet kiss on me when I delivered their final offer to him.

So the law firm of Tasker amp; Kolarich had a big day-over $200,000-and I had my first weekend to myself in a month. No twenty-hour days, no combing over expert reports and witness summaries, no mock direct and cross-examinations, no hair-graying stress wondering if I’d make some crucial mistake that would sink my client’s fortunes.

Now the bad news, which, I guess, is also good news: I have another trial starting in five weeks. What are the odds? Civil litigants don’t go to trial very often. I hadn’t been in front of a jury in almost three years before this PI case. And now two trials within eight weeks? Unheard of. I find myself longing for the old days-before my time, actually-when the caseloads on the judiciary were less oppressive, and judges and lawyers alike tended to schedule everything around their summers. I’m going to lose my June prepping for Arangold and my July trying it.

I don’t live for these things. I like practicing law (you didn’t hear me say love ) because I like helping people. I enjoy strategizing and the challenge of a good legal argument, too, but I don’t relish the fight, the drama, the high-stakes poker.

That’s Jason. That’s all he enjoys. Jason would prefer to be on trial constantly, because it’s the only thing that energizes him, the high-wire stuff. The preparation and workup in the time before trial are viewed as merely a necessary evil to him, something he tries to delegate as much as he can.

I need Jason, I think to myself. I needed him for the personal injury trial, too, but he was still recuperating from the knee surgery. But the Arangolds are expecting Jason to be the lead trial attorney. They swooned when he came in and did his aw-shucks routine while we discussed his successful defense of Senator Almundo on federal RICO charges, his role in the downfall of Governor Snow, and the number of cases he’s tried overall, both as a prosecutor and then as a private attorney. I made it clear that Jason would be there when the jury was in the box. I hate to admit it-really hate to-but I don’t think I could have landed this case without Jason.

I hear him now, down the hall, and feel an extra skip to my pulse. I don’t think we’ve been in the office together once in the past month-or if we were, I was too busy huddling with a witness or the client or an expert. He’s my law partner and best friend, and I haven’t laid eyes on him for weeks. The law firm managed okay while he was laid up, but it felt like an effort, like the entire small firm of Tasker and Kolarich was hobbling on a bad knee along with him.

“Hey, trial lawyer,” he says when he pops into my office. He is glowing from the aftermath of an adversarial hearing himself, some rich kid who got caught with crack cocaine and was looking to Jason to use a legal technicality, also known as the Fourth Amendment.

Glowing, but different. Skinnier, longer hair, dark circles under his eyes. The skinnier part reminds me of high school at Bonaventure, the broad-shouldered, tall kid without much definition to him before Coach Fox got hold of him and he became one of the best football players in school history. The longer hair, of when we were roommates at State, after he got kicked off the football team for fighting and was strongly considering dropping out of school altogether. The dark circles, of the stretch of time two years ago after his wife and daughter missed a turn on a rain-slicked county highway.

I get out of my chair as he walks into my office. I take note of the knee, which doesn’t seem to be causing a limp. He wraps one of his bear-arms around my neck and draws me close. He smells like bar soap, exactly as he has ever since Bon-Bon.

“Hey, handsome,” I say, noting that it’s not the kind of thing you say to someone you see every day and know like a brother. It’s something you say to someone you don’t know that well.

“Sorry I missed the celebration,” he says when we pull back. “Great job on Marion . Six-fifty?”

Actually, Mariel was my client’s last name, but whatever. “Six-fifty.”

“Wow.”

“I’ve missed you.” I put a hand on his cheek. “You look like you could use some sleep.”

“Nah, I’m all good.”

“How’s the knee?”

“All good.”

Jason is one of those guys who think it’s heroic to be stoic. Nothing ever hurts. Nothing’s ever wrong. When Talia and his baby, Emily, died off that county highway, he dropped off the face of the earth for six weeks. He didn’t answer his phone, and when he did, he never once told me he was sad. I never once saw him cry, though he assured me he did. I had to drag him to my law office, put him behind a desk, sit a client in front of him, and say, “Help this person, he needs your help.” That was the only thing that got him back on his feet.